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Tarchitects CEO Tariq Abdullah shows young Douglasville, GA students how they, too, can be an architect.

Just last month, Tarchitects CEO Tariq Abdullah spoke to Eastside Elementary’s kindergarten through second-grade intramural basketball players about being an architect. The young boys in this group are part of a special program initiated by Eastside Elementary School’s 2015 Teacher of the Year Mrs. Nicole Smith-Hall who saw a need and worked to fill it. Oftentimes, these students were in trouble at school for acting out (behavioral issues), bad grades, not paying attention, etc. Mrs. Hall has two young boys of her own who love to play sports and she knows that a coach can handle kids a lot differently than she can in a classroom. Hence, the Intramural Program was born. Recently, Mrs. Hall began inviting successful men from a variety of career backgrounds to speak to the students in order to expose them to a diverse set of careers.

EastSide Elementary Students showcase their architectural drawings.

“The seeds he planted in our children are valuable seeds that they will be able to apply for the rest of their lives,” Mrs. Hall said. “He was so wonderful with our young gentlemen!” Here are some of the top tips Tariq shared:

You can do anything (even if you want four arms, there is a 3D printer that can make that happen) - there's always a way to do something!

Energy is EFFORT

The way you do anything is to put the right energy into it. Questions to ask yourself: Are you using proper energy? Did you use your time properly? Did you use your energy properly?

Collaboration means working together for a solution. Collaboration is not proving who is right and who is wrong.

These young students learned what it feels like to present their architectural ideas to a group - something every architect has to learn how to do effectively.

“I especially enjoyed how he treated our young gentlemen with such respect. He used some pretty heavy vocabulary words and his expectation was for them to use them also,” Mrs. Hall said. Tariq also showed the students how to speak to their peers properly, how to present their ideas, and how to draw their own design the way architects do.

Students are engaging and learning how to work collaboratively as architects would.

At Tarchitects, we believe in shaping the young minds of our future. 

We especially believe in exposing these children to the world of architecture so that they have a better understanding and appreciation for it. And who knows, perhaps they’ll even be inspire to become an architect someday. We sure hope so.

Eastside Elementary's Intramural Sports Team learned that "we can do sports AND architecture!"